


blood in the water

by hellblazeit



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Blood, Introspection, Minor Injuries, caleb realizes he was a fuckhead, i'm so fucking behind you guys, jester is a queen, right after the blood pact with fjord
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-20 18:38:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17627534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellblazeit/pseuds/hellblazeit
Summary: “You know…what you and Fjord did, hurting yourselves, that wasreallystupid.” Jester’s voice is quieter now and Caleb glances up at her. She isn’t trying to meet his eyes anymore, just staring mournfully down at his hand.(You ruin people.)or, Caleb reflects on bad decisions and wonders if they've cost him his friend.





	blood in the water

**Author's Note:**

> i'm like three episodes behind and super busy with college so i'm sorry this is SO LATE but i finally finished something! thanks to my gorgeous, talented, wonderful gf and beta for supporting me!
> 
> set immediately after the infamous Gay Blood Pact that i might tackle the other side of next time.

His father was a soldier. Stiff-backed and practical, kind and gentle. His father knew what duty was, taught him to spell it in the dirt when they took a break from the fields. In time, duty demands he set his father alight in the house his father built, and Caleb does it and regrets it and wishes he could stamp the word out from the dirt in which he first met it.

Fjord is a sailor. It isn’t the same as a soldier, but there are similarities: following orders, pulling one’s weight. Fjord has the taut jaw of someone who lies, but that belongs more to Caleb than it did to his father; it makes it easier to recognize. Fjord spells duty in different colors, blue and teal and brown and green and purple and pink and white, and if he has to sacrifice his own agenda for the good of the group, he does.

Fjord is not particularly selfish. The things he wants come with conditions. If it’s not too much trouble, if the group doesn’t mind, if it won’t take up too much time. He’s considerate, measures what others want before himself.

But when he holds an orb up to his chest with an air of reverence and something feverishly hungry in his eyes, there’s not a single sign that Fjord knows anyone else is even in the room with him, and as it vanishes into nothingness, Caleb thinks that a single-minded focus such as that one is precisely what he needs.

Now, his coat waterlogged and hair frizzed around his face in a stiff product of grease and sea air combined, staring at the dark mass that rumbles above the patch of ocean they’ve left behind, Caleb tastes the tang of iron in his mouth and thinks darkly that the scene is a fairly apt metaphor for his present existence. A storm in his wake.

His hand burns where it’s gripping the ship’s railing too tightly, not yet re-bandaged to cover up his newest mistake. There’s still salt in it, salt on his fingers, salt on the railing, and the sting hasn’t ceased since they jettisoned to the surface of the water and the air hit it for just long enough to remind his body that he’s been an idiot in an ocean and that deep, jagged cut should hurt _very badly_. It did, for a while, throbbing all the way up his arm and dripping crimson folly across the wood of the deck, but he’s had time to acclimate, and now all that’s left is the burn, like a steady simmer. Like hot coals still sizzling after being doused, like voices buzzing at the edge of his mind whispering about his failures, like the fuse to whatever explosive he’s just tucked away into Fjord’s belt for safekeeping, knowing that it’s already armed.

( _Cut palm to cut palm. Because it meant something to Fjord, and only because of that._ )

Caleb feels bile scorch the back of his throat and leans forward over the railing as he swallows it back. The waves churn with white foam below him as the _Squall Eater_ lurches through them, and looking down he can almost imagine a hungry yellow eye staring back up at him. The storm has left the ocean careening in its wake, and that hadn’t been calculated. Leaving the ritual nearly completed, not killing the creature who frequently puts it to use, _that_ had all been stupid, plain and simple. He should have thought of that. He should have thought of a lot more than he did. He was trained _better_ than this.

“ _Cay_ leb? Are you sick?”

He doesn’t look up yet, feeling his stomach churn again with alarming alacrity as the voice brings yet another surge of regret. That voice holds none of the high-pitched panic it had before when she wasted her spells clutching at their arms to try to force the blood back in them, violet eyes staring in horror through the water turning red around them, but it reminds him viciously of it anyway.

“Is it because you lost a lot of blood? That will make you _reeally_ light-headed sometimes. You’d probably know that the most, you get hurt so much.”

“I’m fine.” He’s proud and disgusted that it comes out perfectly even. “Really, jester, I am just…looking at the water.”

“You were breathing really loudly.” Blue enters his peripheral, teetering dangerously past him: a familiar face that alone almost makes him consider smiling despite the nausea. “I thought you were probably throwing up or something, and that is _never_ fun.”

Is he imagining it? The way her cheer sounds artificial, fake? What will he see if he turns his head, fear? Apprehension? That more than anything else convinces Caleb to finally straighten up and look at her properly, hands still tight on the railing. Jester wobbles for a worrying moment, dangling almost entirely over the side of the ship, but kicks her feet back to the floor with a dramatic thud and turns to face him, hands on her hips. Every movement is energetic and abrupt, typical Jester, but that just brings the image of her dancing by herself in the underground bar comes to mind.

( _She pretends everything is fine, but she saw it. Saw me. Saw us. She hasn’t forgotten._ ) The knowledge makes him queasy at heart as well as to his stomach.

“I am not throwing up.”

“Not right _now_ , but _were_ you?”

“No.”

“Are you telling the truth? ‘Cause I can use my spells to make sure if you’re not.”

“Jester you would have heard me throwing up.”

“You don’t _know_ that! I’ve seen lots of people throw up and some of them are very quiet.”

She sounds so normal. They always think she’s fine. She hides her feelings where they don’t think to look: with a bright smile that doesn’t dimple, with a crease in her brow that was never there before Shady Creek Run and that’s only gotten deeper every day since. What does she think of him now? Does she know why he did it?

Pain spikes up through his wrist as his hand slips slightly on the railing and a hiss escapes between his teeth as Caleb lets go, splaying his hand flat against the wood to ease the burgeoning cramps that he should have noticed already. He tries to cover for it, leans a little as if he’d slipped, but with a lack of attention span comes sharp eyes, and Jester’s face goes from some façade of cheer to distressed in the flex of a few muscles.

“Ohh, your hand, Caleb! You didn’t let me heal it again!” She’s on him before he can pull away, flipping his hand over and letting out a dismayed “oooh” at the sight of his palm, the jagged cuts beading with blood again now that the pressure of skin on wood is gone. Caleb attempts to extricate himself, half-heartedly murmuring an excuse that he hasn’t fully thought through yet, but Jester shakes his arm with an indignant noise, turning his wrist this way and that to inspect. “I can totally fix this! It’s like _really_ deep, so there will probably be a scar, but you can still use it for you know, magic and _other things_.” Cue waggled eyebrows, which Caleb is half-sure was already implied and which still makes heat rise to his face with alarming speed.

She’s said it like she’s giving him news he hadn’t already known, so he replies as if she has, watching her press her fingers against his and start to trace the symbol of the traveler across his torn skin. “Well I am lucky, I guess.”

Jester finishes the symbol and her fingertips begin to glow, the tingling numbness of healing magic soaking into Caleb’s muscles as blood cools and cracks and is absorbed into the knitting skin. He’s always found healing magic a little discomfiting, the way it deadens sensation down to the bone and leaves unfamiliar ripples across his own magic; with Jester’s, there’s a whisper like laughter across the back of his brain, a whisper that’s there and then gone and makes him turn his hand over in her grip to make sure she hasn’t played a trick on him. She hasn’t, and he’s a little disappointed.

( _She’s helping you. She’s helping you even though she saw you be so stupid, so careless, so vile. Why?_ )

The sting is gone and the numbness fades, leaving just an odd prickling behind, and Caleb turns his hand over again to stare at the smooth seams that join shiny, puckered pink to the rest of his hand wiggling his fingers just to test. Jester is talking again and he registers just barely, words about it not being a _perfect_ spell and the damage was _really_ deep but at least nothing can get infected now. All of it said brightly, cheerily, but her eyes are purple daggers boring into his eyelids and he can’t look up to meet them.

( _She’s still helping you. She’s afraid you’ll be angry that she couldn’t fix it perfectly. She’s still watching you, still waiting to see the you she saw in the lair. She knows who you are, but she’s pretending she doesn’t, in case who she saw comes back. You know she pretends everything’s okay when it isn’t, you know that she hides the things that upset her, you know that and you took the risk of showing who you really are to her down there because you knew she wouldn’t tell anyone else about it —_ )

Jester is still talking apologetically about the scarring and Caleb shakes his head through the fog in his head, opening and closing his hand. “Nein, it’s good, there is no pain. And anyways, you know, sometimes scars are good reminders.”

( _— and she won’t tell. But she knows now. Funny, kind, happy Jester who tries to make everyone smile and now she knows the kind of person you are. And she’ll just pretend it’s okay. and she’ll call you smelly and tell you jokes and ask you to dance with her and you’ll see it every time she looks at you --_ )

“You know…what you and Fjord did, hurting yourselves, that was _really_ stupid.” Jester’s voice is quieter now and Caleb glances up at her. She isn’t trying to meet his eyes anymore, just staring mournfully down at his hand.

( _You ruin people._ )

He doesn’t know what to say. “Ja.”

“But like, you _know_ it’s stupid, right?” She’s looking at him again and her mouth is a sorrowful frown but her eyes are stern, as serious as he’s ever seen her. “You guys just...kept _going_ even when I _healed_ you, which is supposed to _stop_ you from hurting, by the way! And — and it wasn’t really fucked up the first time because you know, that’s what Molly did all the time and it was _totally_ cool and he was _super_ careful not to hurt himself _too_ much — “

A flash of color against snow and Caleb bites his tongue to bleeding.

“ — but you _weren’t_ careful. Fjord _wasn’t._ You weren’t careful at all. You both could have _really really_ hurt yourselves.“ Jester shakes his arm again for emphasis, staring him down with puffed-out cheeks and a scowl that would be comical if not for the sheen in her eyes, one that she blinks furiously against. “What if one of you doesn’t stop next time?”

Next time. It’s a hypothetical phrase, but Jester uses it with absolute certainty, and Caleb knows instantly that she’s seen him for real. Because there _will_ be a next time. Undoubtedly. Inevitably. There will be a next time, the next time he needs something from someone. The next time he thinks he can use someone. The next time he wants a _guarantee._

He could have dragged fjord down with him this time, if he hadn’t handed off control, if he hadn’t left the decision to someone else. He would have kept going. Fjord might have too.

( _You thought he wouldn’t but you didn’t know. You wanted to see for yourself._ )

( **_You ruin people._** )

( **_You ruin people because you need them._** )

( **_You ruin people because you want them and you don’t care how you get them._** )

( **_You’re just like you were when you —_** )

Caleb feels his hands move automatically, freshly scarred one closing gently around Jester’s fingers and the other laid on top.

“I know.” He picks those words because they don’t promise her that anything will change, but there’s a waver to them that’s unplanned. He looks her in the eye and squeezes her hand tightly. “I know, Jester. I did not expect it to go as far as it did, and I did not mean to…to make Fjord go along with me.”

( _It’s the truth now, but it wasn’t then._ )

The look on Fjord’s face as he stared at the orb sears behind his eyes. It blurs into a fantasy image, the same look directed at the dodecahedron, and Caleb lets out a heavy breath, voice dropping to a whisper. “It went too far. I will try not to let it happen again. I will try not to let Fjord go that far again.” That much he means.

Jester’s eyes are still far too shiny, and she looks down at their joined hands and sniffles, squeezing them much harder than he had. Caleb hears his knuckles pop. “Don’t let _you_ do that again either,” she says, with the same determination she always shows in battle, and there’s a fierce light back to her eyes when she looks back up at him. “Because — because Nott needs you, you know? So you can’t go bleeding everywhere all the time for some stupid wall writing things! Did you know blood attracts _sharks_ , Caleb? You could have brought a bunch of _sharks_ to the cave, and then we would have had to fight a bunch more things and get really tired and sweaty all over again!”

( _Kind. She is so, so kind to him._ )

“I don’t think you can get sweaty underwater.” Caleb hears the smile in his words even before it slides exhausted and tepid to his face. “But that is a good point, and you know, I do not know very much about sharks, so that is an easy mistake to make. I should not do that.”

His small attempt at a smile is nothing against Jester’s bright beam as she shakes his hands up and down in enthusiasm. “Oh, I know a _lot_ about sharks, Mama used to tell me about _really really big_ ones, like ones that can swallow a _boat!_ Fjord told me a lot of like _real sailor facts_ too, like how they can smell from super far away!” She gasps suddenly. “What if they’d smelled _Sprinkle?_ ” She lets go of his hand to rummage in her hood, aggressively brandishing her decidedly seasick weasel at him. “What if I had him with me and the sharks came and they _smelled him?_? He’s super tiny, Caleb! They would have _eaten him!_ ”

Sprinkle sneezes miserably. Caleb shares a look of sympathy with him. “But you would have protected him, you’re very strong.”

“That’s true, but _still!_ Don’t let my weasel get eaten, Caleb!”

That small, lukewarm smile is spreading, and Caleb cautiously pets the weasel’s head with two fingers, nodding seriously. “I cannot promise anything, there is a cat on board.”

“Has Frumpkin even _met_ Sprinkle?” Jester gasps as soon as the words are out of her own mouth, clutching Sprinkle back to her chest. “ _Caleb_ , they should have a _playdate!_ ”

He can’t even feel the numbness of the healing magic anymore. “Ja, okay, but you know cats and weasels are not very friendly with each other, so you will have to watch them very carefully.”

Jester sniffs haughtily, gently placing her weasel back on her shoulder. Sprinkle sneezes once more and retreats to the security of warmth and cloth. “Frumpkin’s not a _real_ cat, Caleb. They will be best friends, and no one will get eaten even a little bit. Now I’m gonna go and see if Fjord needs healing too, because he is _so_ stupid and doesn’t tell me _ever_ when he’s still hurt!”

She pats his arm encouragingly and starts to skip towards the captain’s cabin, and Caleb can’t keep from calling out to her.

“Jester, you are...you are okay, too?”

Her steps falter, and she turns back. For just a moment Caleb sees that little furrow in her brow, the one that’s wasn’t there before Shady Creek Run and has just deepened every day since; for just a moment he sees sharp teeth worry at a blue lower lip, and then Jester smiles again, and it doesn’t meet her eyes. “Duh! I’m A-Okay, _Cay_ leb.”

( _Kind and brave and stubborn. Of the many people in the world you could meet, you are lucky to have met her._ )

His mouth moves without him meaning it to. “Well, I am, ah, here. If, if you want to bring Sprinkle to play with my cat. I think they would have a lot of fun. Frumpkin would not eat him, he is a nice cat.”

He sees her smile spread to her eyes, and a disembodied hum of approval trails across his mind in tandem with the warm glow of accomplishment in his chest. “I already knew that, stinky man!”

And Jester walks away.

Caleb watches her go. His thumb runs absently across the new scar in his palm.

( _Kind and brave and stubborn. Maybe she’ll forgive you in the end._ )

( _Maybe you can get her to smile like that again._ )

( _Maybe you’re not as much like Ikithon as you thought._ )

Caleb turns back to watch the storm.

**Author's Note:**

> hope y'all enjoyed! i've never written jester before but i love her so i'm trying new things. comments and kudos are appreciated, and i just recently made a [ko-fi](ko-fi.com/hellblazeit) so check it out if you'd like!


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